JO Blog

{Top Ten List} 1. Beef Bourguignon tastes the best when you are sitting around a table with a dear friend 2. When I heard the theme was hillbilly…I didn’t really have any concept of hillbilly! 3. That being hit on at the Yella Beak by a woman is fine with me at this point in […]

I get regular emails asking me what we eat with gluten allergies. I am trying to do better with sharing these recipes and answering questions when you have them. I think breakfast can be a hard transition for people because people are used to eating pancakes, cereal, muffins, pastries…etc. The unfortunate truth is that these […]

{Colorado Blogger Get Together} Are you a Colorado blogger that would love to meet other local bloggers? (or do you love to read blogs and would love to meet other creative women?) I would like to invite you to join me April 2, 2011. The evening will start at my favorite place for vintage finds […]

I am so excited to be offering a LOCAL art class. I am hoping that this will be the first of many that I can offer in Castle Rock and the surrounding areas. Grab a girlfriend and meet me at The Barn {yes, my favorite vintage shopping place} for a fun night making art and […]

These past months I have been busy planning and putting the spring line together. I am hoping that you will find this next line the best one to date. As I write this tonight I feel so blessed on this creative journey I have been able to travel. Thank you for supporting me and my […]

I seriously have a movie problem..I love movies! LOVE!! I have girlfriends that I see movies with regularly and Kelly and I often go on date night too. When I go to movies with my girlfriends I kind of come home with ideas for Kelly…… When I saw Country Strong I told Kelly that he […]

What is your passion? When you are given a few hours to yourself what do you dream of doing? What do you actually make the time for? When I think of passions I think of all the things that recharge me and make me who I am. Nothing makes me feel more alive than hiking […]

Over the years I have gotten better at choosing more natural cleaning supplies. It is only recently that I have been making more of my own. This was a little hard for me at first because I love when everything smells “clean”. {I love cleaning supplies..so weird I know!} This past weekend I was reading […]

Like many Americans we have gone gluten free {at least two out of five}. The rest of the family has easily adjusted to our diet. I have been gluten free for the past 11 months.  Hard to believe how quickly that time has gone. You can eat gluten free and still eat very unhealthy. My […]

In this big creative world I have met old souls that I have connected with right away. Some women I have met in person, others I will only know through our emails and others I will only know through their writing. There are women that have made their mark on my heart and they don’t […]

It is easy to feel comfortable behind the lens. I love that I am the one capturing our day to day lives. It is different being on the other side of the lens. This was a fun activity for me because it was out of the norm. I have become more comfortable about it over […]

{All photos on this post are by the talented Traci Thorson} Last summer, while I was visiting my parents, I was able to take the short drive to Na-Da Farm. We both homeschool our children, the kids had recently become pen pals and we were all looking forward to meeting each other in person. From […]

{while we were dating in 1998} Around our twelve year anniversary I wrote this post about My Love Story {Part One}. It tells of love almost at first site, a quick engagement and a marriage 8 months after we met. It talked about complete peace on our wedding day. I knew then that he was […]

We know what we love. We know who we love. The sweetest of gifts are those little things that surprise you with the joy that they bring. Love unexpected. There are too many little things like that in my life so I will just share a few from this week. I have lived in Colorado […]

Last year around this time I watched helplessly as one of my good friends and her husband buried their three week old daughter. They had tried for years to get pregnant without any success. They then tried for years to get pregnant through IVF. Years without a baby and all your heart wants is a […]

Do you remember as a kid lying on the couch with your feet up in the air and your head down by the floor? Didn’t you love the different perspective of the ceiling and parts of the room you usually didn’t notice? I always loved hanging upside down on the monkey bars and seeing how […]

By now I hope you have had a chance to check out the new website. I have gotten many emails asking about my new site and blog redesign. I thought this would be the easiest way to answer your questions. First of all I knew it was time for me to have my own website. […]

Good morning! I hope you have been taking some photos this week. {previous post HERE explains the whole thing} I have to admit that my photo taking was not too impressive this week with the snow storm and all. I am hoping to get outside over the next three weeks and not only take photos […]

Hello everyone! I am excited because today I am sharing with you my first video. Let me clarify….I did a really awesome one and the sound was bad. I did a second one and it was OK but the sound was also jacked up. I made a third as the the sun was going down, […]

I will think of new pieces I want to create all of the time. I will draw them out and put them in an ever growing pile of ideas. The truth is….I have not painted anything since New Years Eve. We gave the kids tons of choices for New Years and they chose art night. […]

Our oldest son is 10 and we had not had “the talk” with him yet. I had been encouraging Kelly to talk with him while they were alone and he kept telling me the timing hadn’t been right. Feeling like he really needed to be told before someone else did I tried talking to him […]

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend! It is incredible here….60 degrees with snow coming in a few days (can you believe that temp difference?). Kelly took Jack and Madolyn for a BMX ride and Ben is playing outside with the neighborhood big kids. He feels so big right now because they came […]

I have a been a lover of fashion since I was a little girl. I have shared before how my mom wouldn't let me buy the plastic high heels so I would put square blocks in my socks and pretend I was wearing high heels. I couldn't get my ears pierced until I was 13 […]